British Airways is to launch its first ads to promote its £40m sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympics with one of the airline's biggest campaigns, which will run for more than a year – but not on TV.

The airline signed a £40m deal in 2008 to become a tier one sponsor and official airline of London 2012, but has so far refrained from launching an Olympic-themed campaign.

BA's first 2012 Olympics campaign, which breaks on Thursday, will run in two distinct parts and use national print media – traditionally the medium the company has committed the largest amount of ad spend in recent years – and online advertising.

The first part of the marketing push will run for three months and feature Heston Blumenthal, Richard E Grant and Tracey Emin.

Aspiring chefs, scriptwriters and artists can enter a competition to work with the "celebrity mentors" to design an Olympic menu that will be used on BA planes; or write a script for a short film that will air in-flight as well as be shown in the London 2012 stadium in the runup to the start of the opening ceremony. The winning artist will work on artwork for a "celebration aircraft".

The second part of the campaign, which will launch at the end of the month, centres around athletes sponsored by BA who are attempting to make it into the Great Britain Olympic team. At the moment four press ads have been developed – more are likely to follow – featuring athletes such as sailor Ben Ainslie.

"We decided to use press and online to sustain the campaign for a long period of time," said the British Airways head of brands, Abigail Comber. "We will support it with YouTube and virals. We have got the budget [for TV advertising]; it is not about that. It is about targeting the right place at the right time and there wasn't the flexibility with TV."

BA is keeping tight-lipped about how much it intends to spend over the next year, although traditionally such high-profile sponsorships are backed with a considerable budget, with the Nielsen Company estimating that in the year to the end of February the airline spent about £11m. In the previous 12-month period BA spent about £16m.

Comber says the campaign will use national press and some specialist magazines, with advertising pushes targeted around times when the athletes are in events in the runup to the Olympics. The first viral is also being released on Thursday, featuring Emin and Blumenthal.

BA will also target events such as the start of the 2012 Olympic torch relay on 18 May, and 27 July, which is the official one-year countdown to the start of the London Games.

"This campaign is standout in terms of its longevity, most campaigns are a lot more tactical, selling products over just a two- or three-month period," said Comber. "This is our largest-ever sustained campaign stretching over 12 months."

BA also said this is its largest sponsorship campaign. The airline also sponsors Bafta, London Fashion Week and Taste of London and has sponsored sporting events such as the British and Irish Lions rugby union tour.

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